Free How Forever Feels by Laura Drewry

the dog’s face in her hands, she kissed him between the eyes and went to stand, but Pete wasn’t done lapping up her attention quite yet, and with Snip not quite balanced, all it took was one more push of his shoulder against her leg to send her stumbling backward.
    Jack was already in position behind her and managed to catch Maya under the arm while holding the flowers up out of the way.
    “Thanks.” She laughed. Even back on her feet, she still kept scratching Pete’s head. “I forgot he did that.”
    “Only with you.” Sure, Pete nudged other people when he wanted attention, but he’d always gone full-on bulldozer with Maya and she’d never once complained, not even when it left her covered in dog hair and slobber.
    She drew the line at having a seventy-five-pound Lab sit on her lap, though, so he had to settle for resting his chin on the back of Maya’s seat. All a ploy to have her keep petting him and telling him how handsome he was.
    It worked.
    “You’re too young to be going gray,” she murmured, giving Pete’s chin a gentle rub. “Poor thing.”
    “Yeah,” Jack snorted at his pathetic dog. “You can see how much he’s suffering. Where to?”
    The Parkside Retirement Home was a newish-looking four-story building surrounded by redbrick walkways over thick green grass. Three floors up, a little old woman in a flowery blue Hawaiian dress welcomed Maya with a big smile and a kiss on the cheek.
    “Come in, come in.”
    “Thanks, but we can’t stay, we just wanted to drop these off.”
    “You dear girl.” The old woman’s eyes welled up as she held the bouquet under her nose and inhaled deeply. “They’re beautiful, thank you, but—”
    “Never you mind.” With a quick flick of her hand, Maya waved away her concern; then before the other woman could argue, Maya took Jack by the elbow and tugged him forward a little. “Mrs. Goodsen, this is my friend Jack. He’s working in town for the next couple of months.”
    If Jack felt like Gulliver before, it was twice as bad when he wrapped his hand around the old woman’s—so small, so fragile.
    “It’s nice to meet you,” he said.
    “Jack.” The old woman’s eyes softened as she closed her other hand around his and squeezed. “My late husband was a Jack.”
    Mrs. Goodsen’s gaze narrowed a little, but she never looked away from him, just smiled slowly. And damn if she didn’t wink at him!
    “I’ll tell you this, Maya,” she said. “You can’t go wrong with a man named Jack. They’re good people.”
    “True story.” Jack grinned, hoping to derail her before that twinkle in her eye got out of control. “Except for the ones who have things like ‘The Ripper’ attached to them. You probably want to avoid those Jacks.”
    “You don’t look like one of those.”
    “He’s not.” With a gentle kiss to Mrs. Goodsen’s cheek, Maya and Jack said their goodbyes and headed back down to the parking lot.
    “D’you do this a lot?” Jack asked, thumbing over his shoulder toward the building. “Bring her flowers for no reason.”
    “Usually on Wednesdays, but I got held up last night. Before she moved in here, she lived in a big old log house that her husband built like fifty or sixty years ago. She loved that place, especially her flower gardens, but she can’t get up and down like she used to, so even if they had a garden here, she wouldn’t be able to work in it.”
    “So you bring her flowers.”
    Snip just shrugged. “Every once in a while I’ll have some flowers that don’t sell and are getting past their prime. I used to take them home with me, but then Mrs. G moved in here and it just made sense to give them to her—perks the place up a bit.”
    “Yeah, but the ones you just gave her didn’t look like they were on their way out. They looked pretty fresh to me.”
    “They were.” Her smile widened. “It’s a couple flowers, Jack, and you saw how happy they made her, so what the hell.”
    It might only be a couple